Happy.....first Mother's Day?

I knew it would happen.  I took Emily into my office yesterday to visit.  I said I wasn't going to but I decided to get over it.  I'm still bitter about them not throwing me a shower...or a birthday now that I think about it.  I told my boss I would be coming in this week and he emailed me back to wish me a happy birthday.  I better get a cake and a present when I get back since I've contributed to everyone else's birthdays over the year.  Ugh, why do I always get this red headed step child treatment?

So anyway, two of the women excitedly wished me a happy first Mother's Day.  Sigh.  I get it, if it's never happened to you, maybe you just don't get it, but what do they think makes a mother?  You don't get mother status until you change X amount of diapers?  Until you've been spit up on so many times?  No, being a mother is measured by loving your child.  I gave birth to Kayla, I held her in my arms and I loved her till the moon and back and I will always love her.  She's my daughter and I am her mother and this is my second Mother's Day. 

Honestly I don't know when you could yourself as a mother.  When the second line forms on the pee stick?  When you see them on the ultrasound?  Feel the first kick?  Or not until you meet them and give birth?  I don't know the answer to that because at least early on I think it depends on the individual person.  For me personally, I did not consider myself a mother after my first miscarriage.  I was devastated over the loss of what was to come, but I did not feel like a mother yet then.  I still think about that baby, and wonder what he would have become, but it's not the same as Kayla or Emily. 

But I can't see how anyone can deny me mother status after losing Kayla just because she is not physically here with us.  Afterall, my mother is gone, she doesn't parent me anymore but she is and will always be my mother.  I know that most of my co-workers likely don't know the details, that I gave birth and all that.  Unless they stop and think about it, they may think of it as an early miscarriage, where the baby just "went away".  Or maybe they think I just bled a lot.  But for the women that have children, and one of them that said this has two, how can they not think back to when they were about 22 weeks pregnant?  They knew we had known the sex for a month, they knew we had a name picked out, I was showing....how can they not think back to their pregnancy at that stage and imagine how devastated they would have been to have lost the baby?

I've never experienced the loss of a living child, but I've always known it must be absolutely mind numbingly painful, and now that Emily is here my heart hurts at just the IDEA of something happening to her.  So I just don't understand why people cannot understand how painful losing a baby is, even if you've never experienced it yourself.  I knew it would happen from distant people who just don't get it, but I was very shocked by today's mail.  I got a mother's day card from my brother and SIL, how nice....until I read the inside.  Happy FIRST mother's day.  Ugh.

They were there, they held Kayla, they cried....how can they, of all people think it's my first mother's day.  Why do our babies have to physically be here for us to be recognized as mothers?.  I mean, I get it....I love Kayla with all my heart, but I didn't understand how much you could love another being until Emily was born.  She is my life, my heart...but Kayla would have been too had she lived.  I will always love Kayla and for the rest of my life I will mourn her death.  I will always wonder what she would have become, every year on March 24th I will have a heavy heart and relive that day, every milestone we happily celebrate with Emily I will be sad that we didn't get to do it with Kayla.  I would go through all of the physical and emotional pain all over again just to hold her for a few more minutes.  I would give anything to have been able to protect my baby and bring her into this world.  How is that not being a mother?